Political Quotes

“one of the least meritorious reasons the President has listed for his veto was that this bill infringed on States' rights. The newly discovered respect for the 10th amendment is heartening but somewhat misplaced. In our mobile society, 80 percent of our manufactured goods are shipped across State lines, and the unpredictability of a patchwork of 50 different sets of laws and liabilities is a major factor prompting this commonsense bipartisan reform. We do not help the consumer when factoring into insurance premiums the uncertainties of compliance with a myriad of different State laws and unpredictability of punitive damage awards. We only add to the cost of the product and render our industries less competitive with foreign companies. Plaintiffs collect less than half of every dollar spent on the civil justice system. The rest goes to lawyers and court costs. One study found the cost of this litigation explosion last year alone was $152 billion, and this is money that could be spent on hiring new workers and investing in new equipment. Tort reform does not deny valid claimants receiving adequate awards. It merely reduces the arbitrary excesses that harm consumers by discouraging many new products from being marketed, medical devices such as heart valve, pacemakers if they utilize silicon. The Washington Post, no conservative house organ, says the primary beneficiaries of our current system are a group of wealthy and powerful professionals.…”